After all, it’s just 4 weeks until Paradise Point is overun by eager online marketers. If the conference is anything like last year it’s going to be fantastic; expect warm climates, incredible speakers (who you can read more about over here), outdoor networking, ice creams and cool beers. What more could you want?

Before we dive into the specifics, I want to introduce you all to Rob.

Rob is this year’s official emcee and conference maestro. Our VP of Seattle, Rob was once a radio producer and does a great radio voice. We can’t wait for him to warm up those vocal chords for sunny San Diego.

Rob will kick off proceedings by giving us his lowdown on the current ‘state of search’.

Now, on to the rest of the sessions for day 1:

Trends and Techniques for Marketers and Data Geeks - with John Gagnon

Technology is changing the way users interact and data is changing how marketers make decisions. In today’s digital age, marketers need to re-think how they’re segmenting customers and use the right data not big data. Find out: #1) Why context can be key to unlocking big data for advertisers to make smarter decisions. #2) Why being #1 has never been more important in advertising. And finally #3) How marketers can move from being reactive to predictive.

Using the Machine to Target the Man - A Guide to Laser Targeted Content Strategy - with Simon Penson

The digital channel is maturing to reflect the real world and with it marketers’ focus is shifting from the technology and platforms to the person once more. This time, however, it’s different. Why? Because there is no longer a requirement to fill in the gaps left in the audience understanding picture with hearsay and gut feel. Instead, the web is awash with exciting data insights about the people we want to target. The marketers’ job is to harness this, turn it into actionable insights and use it to build brilliant, engaging content and wider digital marketing strategies guaranteed to engage.

Developing a content strategy is only half the battle — you also need to devise a plan for distributing your content to ensure it’s seen. Adria will talk you through the different distribution channels and the types of content and target demographics that are best for each. You’ll walk away with a better understanding of how to develop a diverse distribution mix and the tools that you can try right away back in the office.

Why your Next Hire Should be a Video Producer - with Chris Savage

The costs of equipment, production, and distribution are changing the way that video is being created and used. These changes are creating enormous opportunities for us as marketers to truly start to take advantage of what video as a medium has to offer. Chris will be talking about why bringing a video producer on full-time is not only the natural next step but why companies that do so are leaping ahead with the types of account they are making and the return that they get out of every video they make.

Designed for Success: Optimizing the Email Experience - with Justine Jordan

Great design is more than stunning graphics—it’s a key strategy to unlocking the success of email. And as one of digital marketing’s highest performers, email requires its own unique set of content, marketing, and design considerations. Discover the six stages of the inbox experience and pick up actionable tips to help you create amazing emails that get opened, clicked, and stay out of the spam folder.

Continuous delivery is becoming the leading method for software teams to be responsive to the needs of their users. Join Adam to learn how online marketers can employ these same principles to collaborate with developers and deliver high-quality digital campaigns.

Building a Culture of Optimization: Tips for Accelerating your Testing Program Through Cultural Change - with Krista Seiden

Creating a culture of optimization from scratch is no easy task, especially in a large enterprise organization. In this presentation, Krista will walk through best practices for A/B testing, sharing key takeaways for large organizations who are just getting into the optimization game, as well as tips for more established testing programs to try out. Educating teammates, showing and evangelizing big wins, and leading an organizational mindset shift are key steps to taking your business to the next level of insights and growth.

Ideas with Legs: How to Make Content that People will Share - with Mark Johnstone

So you’ve had a brainstorm, and you think you’ve struck gold. But what next? The hard graft of content creation has only just begun. Ideas can be tricky. You need to recognize the good from the bad, and guide them along the path of production. Learn to escape ‘death by a thousand edits’, and emerge victorious with compelling content for the world to share.

Phew! Sounds awesome right? Well it doesn’t end there...

Here’s what to expect from day 2:

Marketing in Your Sleep: How to Build Links, Engagement, Mentions, and Shares with Big Content - with Wil Reynolds

We keep pushing ourselves (and our clients) to do more #RCS. Wil is going to talk through some of his learnings on this journey, sharing expertise on how to get the big ideas, pitch them, and track their impact. In case you’re lucky enough for your big content to get picked up by influencers and journalists, Wil is going to cover how to keep up momentum after the launch. He’ll share actual data from his own #RCS efforts, showing you how the “long tail” of building content focused on helping people will get you everything you need, while you are sleeping. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Taking Down Your Local Competition - with Dana DiTomaso

How many times in local search have you asked yourself “How the heck is that business ranking above ours?” Dana will review a local competitive analysis and explain how to turn that analysis into a plan – including how to pick the right areas to focus on and avoid getting into a war you won’t win.

Your users are switching devices, switching browsers, and clearing cookies like crazy. Mike will talk about ways to encourage user registration, enable painless login, and the means to track, measure, and delight the human interacting with your business, not their browser.

Automation Demystified - with Mike King

Marketing Automation is a set of technologies that has largely been ignored by search marketers due to its complexity. In this talk, Mike will bring automation back down to earth to show you ways to merge audience research, content marketing and search to find quick automation wins and prepare yourself for more complex use cases.

The SEO of Storytelling - with Lisa Gerber

Brand storytelling is the trendy catchphrase of late, but it’s big business and if you aren’t doing a good job telling your story, you’re going to miss opportunities your competition is more than willing to take. Lisa is going to help you dissect the idea of storytelling to understand how doing this well drives revenue. You’ll leave with new ways to approach your content strategy and tips to using content to increase revenue.

Designing Effective Experiments for Product Decisions - with Grace Ng

Every product decision is an experiment. If we can reframe our thinking from launching campaigns and building features to challenging assumptions and running experiments, then we can increase our productivity and get better results with less effort. Grace will share a structured process for designing effective experiments, and talk about some of the common pitfalls and challenges teams face when running experiments in their companies. Using examples from her work helping product teams within large companies, Grace will reveal a few ways to overcome these challenges.

Optimizing Content in a World of Never Ending Algorithm Changes - with Jon Wuebben

Most people in this industry know the ins and outs of the Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird Google updates. But how many of us understand exactly how content and SEO are interlinked? In this talk, Jon is going to teach us how to adopt a more advanced approach to optimizing our content, talking through real case studies and the latest algorithm changes.

It’s all changed – from how people use the web, to how Google ranks pages, to what resonates with influencers. Not surprisingly, the tactics marketers employ need to change, too. But tragically, many of us are stuck in a rut, eeking out the last few drops of fuel from efforts that are dying or dead. What’s even worse – the cutting edge practices that are producing remarkable returns heavily benefit early adopters, and if we’re not in those groups, we could find ourselves way behind in the years to come. In this presentation, Moz founder Rand will dive deep into what really works to drive traffic, rankings, branding, and conversions (and what’s better left in the scrap heap of yesteryear).

Of course no SearchLove conference would be complete without some awesome networking parties! We’ll be heading poolside again for our party on Thursday night which is sponsored by our friends over at Moz. And on Friday we’ll be enjoying chilled beers at the onsite bar sponsored by our buddies at Wistia! We’ve also got the fantastic DeepCrawl team joining us for the conference and all of these companies are going to be giving our delegates some great freebies! You have to be there to get your hands on these...

For those of you who don’t want to miss out on any of the action and extra networking moments, book yourself a delightful Lanai Garden room on site at Paradise Point where the conference and parties are taking place. Our exclusive rate of $184 per night plus taxes expires next week on Sept 19th, so be quick!

About the author

Lynsey joined Distilled in September 2009.
Lynsey heads up our events at Distilled, with plans in place to expand globally – it’s her job to make this happen. The key to being a great events manager is planning, predicting and being ready for...
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